Industry Background. Radiation therapy, with a market size approaching two billion dollars annually, is commonly used in the treatment of cancer, either alone or in combination with surgery or chemotherapy. An important advantage of radiation therapy is that the radiation acts with some selectivity on cancer cells. When a cell absorbs radiation, the radiation affects the cell’s genetic structure and inhibits its replication, leading to its gradual death. Cancerous cells replicate very fast and therefore the radiation they absorb can disproportionately damage them. Currently, the most common type of radiotherapy uses X-rays delivered by a linear accelerator or LINAC. The most prevalent use of LINACs is in intensity modulated radiation therapy or IMRT. Using IMRT, the intensity and angle of the radiation beams are varied or modulated across the target area of the patient being treated. This conforms the radiation beams more closely to the tumor and allows doctors to deliver higher doses of radiation to tumors while limiting the amount of radiation directed at nearby healthy tissue. In this way, clinicians can design and deliver an individualized treatment plan for each patient, targeting the patient’s tumor as closely as possible. The holy grail of radiation therapy, however, is image guided therapy, referred to as IGRT, wherein real-time visualization and precise treatment of moving and changing tumors (resulting from moving and changing anatomy) is expected to enable greater radiation dosing and accuracy while preserving healthy surrounding tissues. IGRT, however, is a nascent technology that is not yet widely recognized: real time imaging of a patient while dosing with radiation presents monumental engineering challenges. Those challenges include the gross incompatibility of LINACs and magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, as LINACs cannot function in the extreme magnetic field of an MRI unit. The alternative to MRI—x-ray or CT scanning—while having no affect on LINAC functionality, is currently too slow to provide real-time visualization, and is itself a source of radiation dosing over and beyond that of the radiation treatment. This additional dosing, particularly with the volume of imaging required for real-time, bathes the patient in an entirely unacceptable level of radiation. [***] LINACs, which are priced in the $2 million a unit range, are sold by Varian Medical Systems, Siemens, Elekta, TomoTherapy, and Nucletron. Varian presently has the largest share of the market (pr...
Industry Background a. Within ten (10) business days of entry of an order granting preliminary approval of the settlement, or by an alternative date agreed to by the Parties, Southwest’s Counsel shall facilitate an informational meeting or meetings between Plaintiffs’ Counsel and an industry expert regarding the domestic air transportation industry, including issues related to market conditions, competition, capacity, pricing, costs, data, revenue management, and other business operations. Southwest will pay for up to sixteen (16) hours of the industry expert’s time. Within ten (10) business days of the meetings described in this paragraph, or by an alternative date agreed to by the Parties, Southwest’s Counsel will meet with Plaintiffs’ Counsel at a mutually agreeable time and place to supplement the information provided by the industry expert.
Industry Background. This case involves the photochromic lens industry. Consumers of corrective ophthalmic lenses (lenses used for vision correction and worn in eyeglasses) have the option to purchase those lenses with a photochromic treatment, which protects eyes from harmful ultraviolet (‘‘UV’’) light. A ‘‘photochromic lens,’’ which is a corrective ophthalmic lens with a photochromic treatment, will darken when it is exposed to the UV light present in sunlight, and fade back to clear when it is removed from the UV light. In 2008, approximately 18 to 20 percent of all corrective ophthalmic lenses purchased in the United States were photochromic, and photochromic lenses totaled approximately $630 million in sales at the wholesale level. Photochromic lenses have characteristics and uses distinct from polarized lenses (which are designed to remove glare) and fixed-tint lenses (e.g., prescription sunglasses). Transitions produces its photochromic lenses in partnership with lens manufacturers known as ‘‘lens casters.’’ Lens casters supply the corrective ophthalmic lenses to Transitions, and Transitions uses proprietary methods to apply patented photochromic dyes or other photochromic materials to the lenses. Transitions then sells the lenses, now photochromic, back to the lens casters. These lens casters are Transitions’ only direct customers. Lens casters, in turn, resell the photochromic lenses to wholesale optical laboratories (‘‘wholesale labs’’) and optical retailers (‘‘retailers’’). Wholesale labs generally sell corrective ophthalmic lenses, including photochromic lenses, to ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians (collectively known as ‘‘eye care practitioners’’) who are not affiliated with retailers. Wholesale labs grind the lens according to the lens prescription, fit the lens into an eyeglass frame, and deliver the frame with the finished lens back to the eye care practitioner. In addition to these laboratory functions, a wholesale lab will often employ a sales force to promote specific lenses to eye care practitioners. Photochromic lens suppliers, such as Transitions, use wholesale labs and their sales forces to market their lenses because wholesale labs are the most efficient means for a photochromic lens supplier to promote and sell its products to the tens of thousands of independent eye care practitioners prescribing photochromic lenses to consumers. Retailers, on the other hand, combine both eye care practitioner and laboratory services. They employ their own...
Industry Background. Semiconductor devices are the essential building blocks used in most electronic products. As semiconductor devices have evolved, there have been three important consequences: (1) an increase in demand for computers and consumer electronics fostered by declining prices for such products; (2) the proliferation of semiconductor devices into diverse end products such as consumer electronics, communications equipment and automotive systems; and (3) an increase in the semiconductor content in electronic products. TRENDS TOWARD OUTSOURCING Historically, semiconductor companies packaged semiconductors primarily in their own factories and relied on subcontract providers to handle overflow volume. In recent years, semiconductor companies have increasingly outsourced their packaging and testing to subcontract providers for the following reasons: SUBCONTRACT PROVIDERS HAVE DEVELOPED EXPERTISE IN ADVANCED PACKAGING TECHNOLOGIES. Semiconductor companies are facing ever-increasing demands for miniaturization, higher lead counts and improved thermal and electrical performance in semiconductor devices. This trend, coupled with increasing complexity in the design of semiconductor devices has led many semiconductor companies to view packaging as an enabling technology requiring sophisticated expertise and technological innovation. Many semiconductor companies have had difficulty developing the adequate internal capabilities and are relying on subcontract providers of packaging and test services as a key source of new package designs. SUBCONTRACT PROVIDERS CAN OFFER SHORTER TIME TO MARKET FOR NEW PRODUCTS BECAUSE THEIR RESOURCES ARE DEDICATED TO PACKAGING AND TEST SOLUTIONS. We believe that semiconductor companies are seeking to shorten the time to market for their new products, and that having the right packaging technology and capacity in place is a critical factor in reducing delays for these companies. Semiconductor companies frequently do not have sufficient time to develop their packaging and test capabilities or the equipment and expertise to implement new packaging technology in volume. For this reason, semiconductor companies are leveraging the resources and capabilities of subcontract packaging and test companies to deliver their new products to market more quickly. MANY SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURERS DO NOT HAVE THE ECONOMIES OF SCALE TO OFFSET THE SIGNIFICANT COSTS OF BUILDING PACKAGING AND TEST FACTORIES. Semiconductor packaging is a complex process requiring substa...
Industry Background. The Company believes that there are three principal forces driving the need for its products and services: 1) the widespread use by manufacturers of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) in product development which shortens product cycles, 2) the adoption by manufacturers of quality standards such as Six Sigma and ISO-9000 (and its offshoot QS-9000) which stress the measurement of every step in a manufacturing process to reduce or eliminate defects, and 3) the inability of traditional measurement devices to address many manufacturing problems, especially related to large components of products such as automobiles, aircraft, and heavy duty construction equipment. CAD changes the manufacturing process. The creation of physical products involves the processes of design, engineering, production and measurement and quality inspection. These basic processes have been profoundly affected by the computer hardware and software revolution that began in the 1980s. CAD software was developed to automate the design process, providing manufacturers with computerized 3-D design capability. Today, most manufacturers use some form of CAD software to create designs and engineering specifications for new products and to quantify and modify designs and specifications for existing products. Use of CAD can shorten the time between design changes. While manufacturers previously designed their products to be in production for longer periods of time, current manufacturing practices must accommodate more frequent product introductions and modifications, while satisfying more stringent quality and safety standards. Assembly fixtures and measurement tools must be figuratively linked to the CAD design to enable production to keep up with the rate of design change. Quality standards dictate measurement to reduce defects. QS-9000 is the name given to the Quality System Requirements of the automotive industry which were developed by Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and major truck manufacturers and issued in late 1994. Companies that become registered under QS-9000 are considered to have higher standards and better quality products. Six Sigma embodies principles of total quality management which focuses on measuring results and reducing product or service failure rates to 3.4 per million. All aspects of a Six Sigma company's infrastructure must be analyzed, and if necessary, restructured to increase revenues and raise the level of customer satisfaction. The all-encompassing nature of these and othe...
Industry Background. In recent years, businesses have been subject to increasing global competition, resulting in pressure to lower production costs, improve product performance and quality, increase responsiveness to customers and shorten product development and delivery cycles. In addition, globalization has greatly increased the scope and complexity of multinational manufacturing organizations. The Internet is impacting competition and the structure of supply chains, driving costs further down and increasing the demand for customer-focused ways of doing business. In order to respond, companies need to rethink their business models and implement solutions that can keep up with the increased rate of change. In our view, e-business goes beyond the Internet and includes all electronic buying, selling and collaboration, supported by a foundation of enterprise applications. We believe e-business impacts each segment of the enterprise software market--corporate, plant/operations and supply chain. Traditional ERP software enables the integration and management of critical data within an enterprise and supports internal business processes such as sales order management, procurement, inventory management, manufacturing control, project management, distribution and finance. Complementary to that, traditional supply chain management software, such as APS, enables companies to make decisions related to the optimization of supply chains by using data from traditional ERP systems. Today, companies are looking for e-business solutions that help manage the supply chain by enhancing the flow of information to and from customers, suppliers and other business partners outside the enterprise. These solutions rely on the Internet as a vehicle for achieving collaboration. In addition, companies need to replace legacy plant/operations-level solutions, including those in place because of corporate mandated Y2K lockdowns.
Industry Background. The public telephone network is an integral part of our everyday lives. For most of its 100-year history, the telephone industry has been heavily regulated, which has slowed the evolution of its underlying circuit-switching technologies and limited innovation in service offerings and the pricing of telephone services. We expect two global forces--deregulation and the expansion of the Internet--to revolutionize the public telephone network worldwide. Deregulation of the telephone industry accelerated with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The barriers that once restricted service providers to a specific geography or service offering, such as local or long distance, are disappearing. The opportunity created by opening up the $750 billion telephone services market has encouraged new participants to enter the market and incumbent service providers to expand into new markets, both domestically as well as internationally. Competition between new players and incumbents is driving down service prices. With limited ability to reduce the cost structure of the public telephone network, profit margins for traditional telephone services are eroding. In response, service providers are seeking new, creative and differentiated service offerings as the means to introduce new revenue opportunities and to reduce costs. Simultaneously, the rapid adoption of the Internet is driving dramatic growth of data traffic. Today, a significant portion of this data traffic is carried over the traditional circuit-switched telephone network. However, the circuit-switched network, designed for voice traffic and built long before the advent of the Internet, is not suited to efficiently transport data traffic. In a circuit-switched network, a dedicated path, or circuit, is established for each call, reserving a fixed amount of capacity or bandwidth in each direction. The dedicated circuit is maintained for the duration of the call across all of the circuit switches spanning the path from origination to the destination of the call, even when no traffic is being sent. As a result, a circuit-switched architecture is highly inefficient for Internet applications, which tend to create large bursts of data traffic followed by long periods of silence. In contrast, a packet network divides traffic into distinct units called packets and routes each packet independently. By combining traffic from users with differing capacity demands at different times, packet networks more efficiently...
Industry Background. In today’s highly competitive business environment, a company’s operational success is greatly dependent on the strength of its information technology assets, particularly its software. Enterprises strive to stay ahead of the competition by investing significant resources in new software applications that enhance the productivity and profitability of their operations. Because software is fundamental to an enterprise’s business, technology to help streamline the software implementation process is a requirement for business success. Software development in particular can be a time-intensive, frustrating and costly process. Speedy and effective development of applications not only saves money, but becomes vital when productivity-enhancing applications are needed to counter the effects of changing business conditions or emerging competitive threats. In this context, technology that simplifies and automates the development process – including an application’s design, creation and troubleshooting in one environment – is invaluable. This type of technology is critical to allowing enterprises to produce and install robust, productivity-enhancing applications in a timely and efficient manner. In particular, using multiple, un-integrated development products for various design and development functions increases the amount of time needed to complete development projects because information from one development product must be carried over to another product.
Industry Background. INTRODUCTION Use of the Internet, including intranets and extranets, has grown rapidly in recent years. This growth has been driven by a number of factors, including the large and growing installed base of personal computers, improvements in network architectures, increasing numbers of network-enabled applications, the emergence of compelling content and commerce-enabling technologies, and easier, faster and cheaper Internet access. As a result of this growing use, the Internet has become an important new global communications and commerce medium. The Internet represents an opportunity for enterprises to interact in new and different ways with both existing and prospective customers, employees, suppliers and partners. Enterprises are responding to this opportunity by substantially increasing their investment in Internet sites and services. Over the last few years, enterprises that focus solely on distributing products and services over the Internet have emerged and, more recently, mainstream businesses have begun to implement Web sites to complement traditional business models and applications. Among the various factors which continue to attract these businesses to the Internet is the transformation of Web sites from being primarily text-based and informational to becoming interactive, multimedia-enabled and transaction oriented. New technologies and development tools have also led to the Web-enabling of traditional business functions and applications such as customer service, procurement, human resource management and sales force automation. Internet operations and applications are mission-critical for virtually all Web-centric companies and are becoming increasingly mission-critical for many mainstream enterprises. At the same time, these operations and applications are becoming more complex and challenging to operate. Ensuring the quality, reliability, and availability of these Internet operations typically requires substantial investments in developing Internet expertise and infrastructures. However, such a continuing significant investment of resources is often an inefficient use of an enterprise's limited resources. As a result, businesses are increasingly seeking collaborative outsourcing arrangements that can increase performance, provide continuous operation of their Internet solutions, and reduce Internet operating expenses. According to Forrxxxxx Xxxearch in May 2000, 44% of the Global 2500 firms they surveyed have outsourced the management of t...
Industry Background. Emerging technologies continue to play a central role in companies' efforts to remain both competitive and cost-efficient in an increasingly complex global business environment. These decisions require participation from corporate leaders, business managers, marketing executives, and technology professionals. Together, these individuals must work to reduce and even eliminate the traditional separations between marketing, business strategy, and technology to reach new markets, gain competitive advantage, and develop high customer service and loyalty levels. Developing comprehensive and coordinated business strategies is difficult because as the economy and technology change, consumers and businesses adopt new methods of buying and selling, and markets grow increasingly dynamic. Consequently, companies rely on external sources of expertise that provide independent business advice spanning a variety of areas including technology, business strategy, and consumer behavior. We believe there is a need for objective research that is thematic, prescriptive, executable, and that provides a comprehensive perspective on the integrated use of technology in business. XXXXXXXXX'X SOLUTION Our business and technology expertise enables us to offer our clients the best available research on changing business models and technologies, technology investments, implementation changes, and customer trends. Our solution provides our clients with: THE WHOLEVIEW. We provide our clients with a comprehensive and unified view of technology's impact on business, which we call the WholeView, the primary component of which is WholeView Research. WholeView Research provides our clients with comprehensive access to our core research offerings. Our WholeView Research combines with our Data, Consulting, and Community products and services to offer clients access to the research, data, analysts, and peer insights they need to: - Assess potential new markets, competitors, products, and services. - Anticipate technology-driven business model shifts. - Understand how technology affects consumers and can improve business processes. - Educate, inform, and align strategic decision-makers in their organizations. - Navigate technology implementation challenges and optimize technology investments. - Capitalize on emerging technologies. A UNIFIED SET OF SERVICES TO BUILD BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIES. Clients may combine our WholeView Research with Data, Consulting, and Community offerings to enhan...
